As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to these users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may vary with respect to the type of information handled; the methods for handling the information; the methods for processing, storing or communicating the information; the amount of information processed, stored, or communicated; and the speed and efficiency with which the information is processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include or comprise a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
A computer system, such as a server computer, may include a network interface controller that is communicatively coupled to microcontroller that resides on the motherboard of the server computer. The on-board microcontroller is sometimes referred to as a baseboard management controller. The baseboard management controller serves as a centralized processor for hardware-level management of the server computer. At least some server architectures include a side band communications link between the network interface card and the on-board management controller. The side-band communications link is in addition to the communications links provided by the operating system software of the server computer. One example of a side band communications link between the network interface controller and the on-board controller is the System Management Bus (SMBus), which is a two-wire bus for communicating between devices on a motherboard. So that the SMBus is not overwhelmed with traffic, the network interface controller filters traffic received at the network interface controller to the on-board controller on the basis of the MAC or IP address of the communication. Some Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) commands include a broadcast MAC address and are not easily filtered at the network interface controller. As a result, some DHCP commands will be passed to the on-board controller even if the commands are not intended for the on-board controller, thereby increasing the amount of traffic on the sideband communications link.